Bolts

How to spell bolts

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bolts

What does bolts mean?

1. nounThreaded metal pins or sliding metal bars used to fasten or secure things.
2. verbRuns away or moves off suddenly and quickly.

Bolts in a sentence

• noun

  The engineer checked that all the bolts on the bridge were tight.

• verb

  The nervous horse often bolts at the sound of fireworks.

• noun

  Two heavy bolts held the workshop door shut overnight.

• verb

  Whenever the doorbell rings, the cat bolts under the bed.

Where does bolts come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word goes back to the Old English bolt, which named a short, heavy arrow shot from a crossbow. The root is Germanic, with close relatives in Old High German bolz and Dutch bout, all suggesting a stout, straight shaft. Over the centuries the sense of a straight rod spread outward: it came to mean the sliding metal bar that fastens a door, the threaded metal pin used with a nut, a sudden dash like an arrow in flight, and even a long roll of cloth. The phrase 'a bolt from the blue' kept the old idea of something striking like a shot arrow. Because the spelling has stayed close to the original single Old English syllable, the only real trap is the plain plural -s ending, with no doubling or vowel change.

How the word is built

• bolt (Old English: arrow, sliding bar)
• -s (plural noun / third-person verb)